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Monthly Archives: March 2014

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Remember my #create365 project? I got a bit sidetracked by my vacation and work, but I still try to make stuff when I can:

Allie very generously sent me her unused Fashionary! I’ve had this on my wishlist for the longest time, so this made my week! She also sent me erasers for making stamps. Thank you so much, Allie!

Inspired by Picnic at Hanging Rock. I pretty much spazzed when I saw an exhibit at Acmi Australia with bits about this movie. It reminds me of The Virgin Suicides, with a Twilight Zone/David Lynch twist:

My friend Marie and I have been obsessed with gardening lately, and at the office, we have this cactus:

For our 78th month together, my partner and I went to the annual Art in the park event at Salcedo. If I remember correctly, I’ve been going to this event for around four years already. I love parks and I love art and this event is pretty much the stuff of my dreams–lovely and affordable artworks done by lovely friends and sold in a lovely park. Awesome.

Before going to the park, we had a brunch date at home with her friends Cy and Almi. We swam for an hour or so afterwards.

Then off we went!

Some of my faves:

(This transforms to a cabinet! Made by Jomike Tejido)

I bought a lot of postcards from Ang INK’s booth:

I met new and old friends and got a pink elephant made of cotton candy!

It was made by the very talented Kuya Arnold. BEST!

We went to BGC afterwards, where I drew her while she slept lol:

Watched The Sound of Music at BGC’s outdoor cinema after dinner:

We got an awesome couple portrait made by THE Apol Sta.Maria. Here it is with my first portrait done by him at the Art in the Park event two years ago:

When I was making my US Bucket list, I added “Visit San Francisco” there, thinking it might be unrealistic since it was a long drive to SF from LA. My aunt and her in-laws were kind enough to make my dream happen, though! We found ourselves on a road trip to Sacramento, where we’d stay for the night, then off to San Francisco we went, the next day. Huzzah!

That day was foggy and rainy, but the place was still lovely. We went to Haight-Ashbury upon the recommendation of friends (Thanks Honey and Kat!) and I had a grand time absorbing all the wonderful architecture and sights and colors. I also read that there was a Searle and 25 years of the Sandman exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum, so we went there as well. We passed through the crookedest street in the world and stuffed our faces with lutong bahay afterwards. All within one glorious day. I may have left my heart there but I am promising myself I’d return for it one sunny day.

I was able to check out the Type Kita exhibit the other day with Kate at 10A Alabama. It was a type/letterer-fiend’s dream!

My penmanship since I was young was always graded with a line of 7 in my report card since I don’t have the patience to sustain making evenly-spaces diagonal lines or perfect loops. This is probably why even if I try hand-lettering gazillions of times, I still make them look crappy haha. But the works in the exhibit are totally ace, and would amaze you with its variety:

I spent all my monies buying from Geli, Ella and Abbey Sy’s booths har. But no regrets! They serve as inspirational/aspirational pieces.

I was able to attend the paper flower making sesh with Victoria Velasco, and here’s what I made:

Then I got to watch Abbey and Patrick create on the spot calligraphy lettering/hand-drawn lettering.

Abbey’s work, which I arbored:

Patrick’s works:

I got so inspired by the event that I made some hand-drawn ones at home using pages from old magazines:

I remember liking having my box of colored pencils around since I was a kid. I colored projects with it, treating it as just that– colored pencils. So I wrote letters using them and interchanged the colors for every word and made a few halfhearted attempts to doodle with them but stopped at that.

But now I have come to realize how much power these pencils have.

It started during snacktime. I was snacking on pomelo with salt and I snapped a photo and uploaded it on my instagram:

I joked that it’s my life goal to paint it, a joke which was half-meant, because it seemed really challenging, but I’ve seen realistic paintings and know that it is possible.

So I made it into a serious goal. I decided that I could finally use my colored pencils to try and draw something with the intent of making it look real, and also draw something real-looking, two birds with one stone.

I started with this at around 8 pm yesterday. Obviously I have no idea what I’m doing.

After several hours, here it was, the point where I was starting to feel tired and doubting myself and thinking about what my purpose in life is, haha. Existential portion!

Way past midnight, and I was still not done! At this point I was surprisingly enjoying the challenge so I pushed myself some more and slept at around 4 am, with the above drawing ready to be finished the next day, because, sleep.

We went to the Type Kita exhibit at 10a alabama today! More on this in the future hehe. But that meant the drawing must wait, and when we got home, it was waiting for me.

I soldiered on and after 9 hours, it’s finally finished!

I feel so fulfilled and happy haha:

And this is the start of my obsession with colored pencils, I can tell. 🙂

My old Vivitar died on me a year or so ago, but luckily I found an old simple plain and shoot. Not a lomo, but I still loaded it with film and hoped for the best. Here are some of my fave shots from my first roll. I had four rolls developed (I’m sorry, wallet!), and I’ll be posting more film photos next time. Photos with me in it are taken by my cousin, who is an awesome photographer. You’d notice this because all the rest of the photos (meaning, taken by me) are blurred and most possibly shot in a very hurried manner because that’s just how I roll. Photos below were taken mostly in San Francisco (will blog about that whole SanFo experience in the future), and it just so happened that the weather at that time was not that nice, which explains why most of the photos here are grayish and gloomy. I kind of like how they turned out though! Some photos are from Solvang, Santa Barbara and Shell beach.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Heima Brixton ever since I saw photos of the place in Instagram. After a lunch meeting with my Katha Magazine co-founders in the area (A quick pause hehe: Our latest issue is out now! It’s free! http://bit.ly/katha-issue04), Geli and I finally got the chance to visit Heima Brixton:

I’m glad we got to visit the place–it was MAGIC.

It looked nice, it smelled nice, it sounded nice. I bet if I licked the furniture it would also taste nice.

On our way to Sacramento, we passed by Shell Beach, CA, where I saw a pelican for a first time! Or something that resembles a pelican, I’m not sure:

I had to camwhore with all the whales and dinosaurs because they were there, and I was there too:

I realized recently that I quite enjoy taking landscape photos inside a moving vehicle. I like the imperfections, and there are bound to be a lot of wonkiness in the shot: blurred trees, blurred land, blurred everything mostly. But when I do get lucky and the vehicle slows down a bit when I take the shot, I get pictorial souvenirs that remind me of how I got to my destination, a reminder to always keep my eyes peeled for interestingness.
(All the photos below are taken with my point-and-shoot-canon cam, while inside a moving car, apologies for the blurriness)

We traversed Highway 41, and it was nice and peaceful—at first.

The sun was setting, the view looked lovely, and rows upon rows of trees have orange leaves (I’m from a tropical country so this was something special).

I always read about red barns so I was excited when I saw one:

For some reason, I’ve always associated barns and the vast expanse of the countryside with a Stephen King story so I kind of gave myself the creeps when I took that photo.

The lack of vehicles made the journey through the highway unnerving. The sharp curved roads that went on for what seemed like miles made me nauseous. There was a speed limit so we couldn’t slow down, especially since there was a car trailing us. When we finally saw a chance to stop for a bit, I had to go down since I wasn’t feeling that well. The air helped, but when I looked at the surrounding areas, I knew we had to hurry and leave the highway before nightfall. I wasn’t sure about this, but I didn’t see any lampposts in the road. My imagination was working overtime and thinking of Stephen King-y scenarios and it was really creeping me out.

I still took some snaps of the area though:

When we finally got off the highway, these ravens bid us goodbye:

The day ended on a happy note, with my newfound love, Jack In The Box’s Sourdough burger. Mmm, burger:

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Mabuhay!

Hi! I'm Drea Dela Cruz, an artist/crafter from Manila, Philippines.

I love trying new things related to arts and crafts and experimenting with various materials.

I started this blog because I wanted to share my love for the DIY movement--I believe everyone has that artistic side that makes them unique and special and I support encouraging fellow makers. Keep on making things!

Aside from arts and crafts, I also enjoy reading books and magazines, playing with stray cats, traveling, and eating. I'd love to share my artsy-craftsy adventures and journey with you here!

If you wanna get in touch with me, kindly email: mabuhaydiy@gmail.com.